Boob Job Tourism ad banned in the UK
Photo by Enzo Cositori
Funny though this may seem, it does emphasize the fact that Medical Tourism is becoming a big niche for both travel companies and medical entrepreneurs. Indeed, the New York Times this week reported that medical tourism companies are already working with clinics in Cuba to offer economical surgeries and other medical treatments as soon as travel rules are liberalized.
Speed up your site’s loading time: optimizing images
The Internet is flooded with a stream of competing small businesses fervently marketing their messages, so how can your site stand out?
One way is to ensure that your all-important photos, screenshots and other images are optimized to load quickly while engaging the viewer’s interest. Slow-loading pages will not only prompt users to bail from your site, they can also affect your search ranking.
Elegant Themes has some good ideas on how to optimize your images, both before and after they’re uploaded to your WordPress site. Judicious use of graphics tools such as Photoshop and GIMP can significantly reduce the loading time of an image, without noticably compromising quality. And for images that are already in your Media Library, I like plugins like Smush.it, which let you batch-process the job of optimizing images throughout your whole WordPress site.
Helpful Pin of the Week
I focused on building my Work Tools Board this week, and found some interesting articles on content marketing, crowdfunding and, my favorite: “What goes into a Media Kit?”.
Marketing in general, and PR activities in particular, can be daunting for entrepreneurs: you envision a steep learning curve and major time suck to get yourself and your product out there. But as Maya Elious capably explains, an effective Media Kit can be created using a series of simple steps. Value add!
Is it a good idea to rely on a writing group to critique your work?
Apparently not, as Michael Neff opines in this eye-opening piece at The Writer’s Edge. He goes on to explore some other clichés and caveats about the exploitation of authors and the pitfalls of listening to amateur advice. Novelists may find a group helpful if they abide by a set of rules and judge others’ work according to a limited set of criteria. Other types of writers, not so much. While touting the value of professional reviewers like himself, Neff makes some thought-provoking points.
Snow-mad Bostonians
photo courtesy of indierockranger